Canadian company part of cosortium developing
fields being cleared by force in civil war
By Damien Lewis
October 5, 1999
Gumriak, Sudan -- The Nuba mountains of southern Sudan, a region long closed to outsiders, is Sudan's new killing fields, where bombs and helicopter gunships have razed villages and deep, blackened craters pock the landscape. The area is a crucial oil field, and working amid the destruction are Canada's Talisman Energy Inc., of Calgary, as well as state oil companies from China and Malaysia, trying to increase the region's oil output tenfold.
The Sudanese may not know the actual names of the oil companies responsible for what happens here. But they all know that their lives are being destroyed because of oil. "The reasons for the attacks are clear," said Stephen Mabok, a local commissioner. "They want to exploit the oil in this area without fear of local resistance, so they are clearing the area and removing all the people."
Sudan has an estimated $45-billion (U.S.) in oil reserves. The international consortium of companies developing the fields has plowed more than $4-billion (U.S.) into what they hope will be Africa's newest oil boom. The oil fields are situated on the very front line of Africa's longest-running civil war, in which the ruling National Islamic Front is pitted against the rebels of the South, chiefly the Sudan People's Liberation Army. In 1983, when the northern government tried to impose Islamic law on the south, war broke out. An estimated two million Christians and Muslims have been displaced by the war.
The rebels say the NIF regime aims to Islamize and Arabize the animist and Christian black Africans of South Sudan, or exterminate them. They say they're fighting for their very survival. The extent of the terror unleashed here is chilling. There had recently been an airdrop of food by the United Nations World Food Program. But the Antonov bombers came hot on the tail of the UN aid, and dropped bombs on the starving people as they tried to get to the food.
All around are the scattered fragments of humanity, families hunkered down on the bare earth among the trees. One or two have crude shelters made from UN food sacks, stitched together with string. Most have nothing. One woman, wearing a soiled floral dress, just stared aimlessly into the distance. Of nine people killed, one was her sister. As she started talking, her anger, the unquenchable resistance of the Southern Sudanese, flared. She spoke in staccato sentences, jabbing the air with her finger. "They [government forces] came with Antonov bombers, helicopter gunships, tanks and machine guns. Everything was destroyed when they attacked, and we just ran away. . . . They attacked us because they want to seize the area and put it under their control. "Many died in the attacks. Many more are now dying of starvation and thirst. We know why they came to clear this area -- because they want the oil." She all but shouted this last sentence. And then, more subdued: "We need food, clothes, water, just basic things to survive."
Deliberate attacks on civilians are against the Geneva Convention, but no outsiders -- certainly no Western press -- are supposed to come here and witness the killings and the burning.
"The government forces came first and attacked from the air, using Antonov bombers," said Mr. Mabok. "Then came the helicopter gunships. Then the enemy came on the ground and attacked the villages, burning them and seizing women and children." He listed the names of villages destroyed: "Alog village first, and killed 11 people. Then Dir village and killed nine people. Then Obanye and killed 19." The list went on and on.
The foreign delegation arrived recently in a light Twin Otter aircraft, chartered by a tiny, maverick aid group called Christian Solidarity Worldwide, which specializes in taking medical aid to parts of southern Sudan too dangerous or closed off for others to reach. They came to Gumriak airstrip, on the eastern flank of Sudan's oil fields, at the request of the rebels after the government raid. The survivors were desperate for medical help. A rebel soldier dressed in a Hawaiian shirt led the group to the first village clearing, a Kalashnikov assault rifle slung over his shoulder. All that remained of Jamjang village was a circle of burned huts, wood-and-mud walls reduced to a sad ring of blackened ashes. The acrid smell of smoke still hung in the air. Passing feet kicked up a cloud of fine ash.
One survivor, Michael Manyiel, crouched down on the heap of ashes that had been his home. He wore a bright purple African caftan. He has gentle eyes and spoke with little bitterness or anger. He and his family escaped alive. He was one of the lucky ones. "The enemy came out from Pariang and burned the villages, but we had managed to flee the area. I took my family to a safe area, but now there is no food and they are starving. The food the UN brings is not enough. Now they are living under the trees."
Mr. Manyiel shows us the village hospital. He worked here as a medic. The four walls are still standing, but the windows are scorched, blackened holes. Inside, knee-deep in ashes, remains of a busy hospital are clearly visible -- a discarded shoe here, a broken water bottle there. "Over all, it must be around 6,000 homes burned, yes, 6,000," the commissioner said. "And 16 churches. . . . Including the food and everything, it was all burned. People are now just living in the bush, you can see them."
Lady Caroline Cox, a British politician and president of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, has been touring the area in the company of several reporters, was deeply moved by what she witnessed. "These are the oil fields, the areas that the Northern regime, the National Islamic Front, wants to take for its own," she said. "These things are happening now, the world doesn't know, aid groups are not there; the people have nothing and are cut off and they are dying."
Her colleague, Ed Cornwell, works for the U.S. aid group Safe Harbour. A former U.S. Marine who fought in Vietnam, he was equally moved by what he saw. "In viewing the desolation, the bombing, the torching -- the various forms of annihilation -- the people were so cowed it almost broke my heart," he said.
Talisman CEO Jim Buckee recently defended the company's investment in Sudan, saying that a Sudanese leader has assured him that the money earned from oil will be used for "roads, hospitals [and] peace, especially in the south. "I absolutely don't believe accusations of genocide and . . . think the accusations of slavery are grossly misrepresented," he said.
Critics of the regime in Sudan charge that revenues from the oil boom will be used to buy ever more deadly weapons, and the refined oil will be used to fuel tanks and war planes. This will exacerbate a war that has already claimed a staggering two million lives.
The oil companies say oil will bring development and prosperity to a desperately poor country.
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